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About Michael J. Miller

Miller, who was editor-in-chief of PC Magazine from 1991 to 2005, authors this blog for PC Magazine to share his thoughts on PC-related products. No investment advice is offered in this blog. All duties are disclaimed. Miller works separately for a private investment firm which may at any time invest in companies whose products are discussed in this blog, and no disclosure of securities transactions will be made.

Windows Phone 7: Integrated Features, Retro Name

As I watched the announcement of Microsoft's awkwardly-named "Windows Phone 7 series" this afternoon at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, I was struck by the contrast between the advanced look of some of the features - notably the "integrated experiences" -- and the almost old-fashioned way Microsoft has chosen to describe its new platform.

While the rest of the industry seems to be taking pains to call their offerings "mobile devices" and to emphasize that they are "more than phones," Microsoft has gone in the other direction, calling this "Windows Phone" instead of Windows Mobile. Indeed, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer went out of his way to stress that "a phone is not a PC," and while that's certainly true, the Windows Phone platform is clearly trying to be a lot more than just a traditional phone platform.

Indeed, Microsoft is clearly trying to leverage its other businesses - including its Office tools, Windows Live services, Zune HD, and Xbox Live - in adding a large number of features into the Windows Phone 7 platform. When devices that use Windows Phone 7 come out at the end of the year, it's clearly a lot of these services that will be what differentiates them from devices on other platforms.

Here's PCMag's look at the UI. But what stood out the most in the demos from UI designer Joe Belifore was the focus on integrated experiences, which combined multiple applications, so that you didn't have to constant switch between individual applications to do things. He pointed out five different "experiences" or "hubs" as the core of the new platform. In the People hub, you have a list of the people you connect with, including the most recent contacts, their status from Facebook, Windows Live, and recent messages on Exchange or Online Mail services, including Google, Yahoo, and Windows Live Mail. That's nice, although not all that different from the integrated contacts list I've seen in Palm WebOS, Android, or even Samsung's Bada.

Perhaps the most important one is an "Office Hub," which includes a version of the OneNote notetaking devices that can sync with the desktop version, your Microsoft Office documents, and SharePoint services. As near as I can tell, this integration with Microsoft's business productivity tools is deeper than that other platforms now offer, and may very well act as an important differentiator in the business space. It's also very nice that the mail applications support offline caching, so you can work with your mail when offline.

Another one that stands out is the Games Hub, which ties into Xbox Live, and lets you play Xbox Live games, connect with your friends, and mark achievements, just as you do on the Xbox. I can imagine a group of gamers who will find that compelling as well.

The other hubs bring together pictures from the phone and various online services, again including Facebook and Windows Live; and music and video, including synching with Zune HD and a way to integrate third-party services, such as Pandora; and Games, which ties into Xbox Live

There are a number of other features that stand out, including a consistent user interface that is focused on a series of "live tiles" on the home page. This can including things like the people you interact with the most, your favorite applications, Outlook or other mail systems, recent playlists, etc. The "live" nature of this does seem to be like a big step forward - for instance, the mail application can show recently received messages, the "people" tile could show recent updates;, etc. That's a step forward from the static application icons I've seen on most systems. (I never have understood why a "weather" icon couldn't have the current temperature, for instance.)

Other features include more context- awareness in the platform. For instance, if you search for "sushi" it will show local restaurants first; if you get a message with an address in it, you should be able to click on it and bring up Bing Maps.

One thing that will make this different from previous versions of Windows Mobile is that it should be more consistent. Microsoft is insisting that all its hardware partners use this basic interface, though they can extend it. All the devices will have three hardware buttons - one for home, one for search, and another for back. (Personally, I often would like a hardware button that immediately brings up or answers the phone, but I haven't used it.) And Microsoft has partnered with Qualcomm to create the core hardware.

Ballmer said this wouldn't hurt innovation any more than the transition from DOS to Windows did in the PC market, but I it is debatable whether even that change led to more innovation (though it obviously did lead to a bigger market.) He also said that while that while the company liked "apps," he thought it was the total experience that made the most impact.

One disappointment was that there weren't any Windows Phone 7 devices around to even play with. It's still early for the OS - Microsoft plans to detail developer tools at its Mix conference next month, and the phones are now slated to be shipping by this holiday season, so in many ways, this announcement was mostly aimed at developers and the hardware ecosystem. Microsoft announced support from 8 different hardware makers (including Dell, Garmin-Asus, HP, HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericson, and Toshiba.) and a variety of carriers, with Microsoft listing all four major U.S. carriers, though singling out AT&T. It's key to note that all the carriers and most of the device makers also support other platforms, so Microsoft is clearly going to have to do a lot of pushing on its own to push Windows Phone to consumers.

Without actually using the system, it's hard to judge how easy it really will be to use, and how well third-parties will extend it. And of course, Microsoft's competitors aren't standing still. But there seems to be a lot of very innovative thinking here: a different way of looking at the problem of how to handle mobile devices as they do more. But Microsoft still has an uphill battle to regain the mindshare - not to mention the market share - that is has lost in the mobile arena in the last couple of years.

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